


Fair Enough

by Twelve (Dodici)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Romantic Tension, but it's actually butterbeer, mention of Shadow Weaver's A+ parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28393743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dodici/pseuds/Twelve
Summary: Entrapta is sure that the Shrieking Shack hides a fascinating story. Her schoolmates just had too many butterbeers and, in some cases, too much unresolved romantic tension going on.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Scorpia (She-Ra), Emily & Entrapta (She-Ra)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 51





	Fair Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Sad as it is, the title is also what i said when i decided i was fed up with editing XD  
> But with this i've reached my nonsensical self-imposed goal of 100k posted words this year so, uh, yay??

It’s no big deal. 

“Just go and have fun, you guys, I’ll be fine!” Adora tells them and to whoever happens to be in the common room and to herself. 

It’s cool. Totally. No big deal.

“But this is so unfair!” Glimmer says and she looks ready to embark into some holy crusade, pound on the headmistress’s office door yelling for her mother to just comply. 

That wouldn’t be pretty—people are already giving her a hard time just for being the headmistress’s daughter, she definitely doesn’t need a real reason to get picked on. 

“it’s fine,” Adora says, as Swift Wind purrs on her knees, lazy eyes bouncing from Glimmer to bow to the fireplace. He yawns, kneading Adora’s tights with sharp nails. “I mean, I’d like to come with you but I can’t, so it just has to be fine anyway. I’ll finally have time to finish my potion essay, maybe.”

“Wasn’t that due yesterday?” Bow asks, frowning. 

“Exactly,” Adora says, and he snorts from both nostrils, much to Swift Wind's dismay. “That’s why it’s really time I actually sit down and write it.”

Glimmer looks at her straight in the eyes for five intense seconds before she sighs hard and lets herself fall down onto the nearest puffy armchair. 

“It’s. Not. Fair!”

“Yeah,” Adora says, bitter. “Shadow Weaver never really is.”

“But there must be something we can do! Just forge the—” she ends the sentence inside Bow’s palm. 

“The prefects are around!” he says, like he himself isn’t already bound to become the next one. 

Glimmer rolls her eyes hard. She licks Bow’s hand and he jumps up, screeching.

“Just forge the signature,” she insists, this time in a whisper.

Adora gapes.

“I… I don’t know,” she says, and peaks fast behind her shoulder because Shadow Weaver is always behind her somehow—like an actual shadow, tailing her, guiding her most basic reactions like she’s under the imperious curse.

“You don’t have to do anything that could get you in trouble,” Bows says, stepping up. “You don’t need to. We’re staying with you.” He searches for Glimmer’s eyes and she blinks, but nods nonetheless.

“Who cares, right? It’s just a magical village!” he carries on, even surer than before. “I mean, would I love to visit it? Sure! Did I wait two entire years to go? Of course, that’s just normal Hogwarts protocol. Have I ever…”

Adora doesn’t even find the energy to scoff. She’s already taken both Bow’s and Glimmer’s hands to press them at her heart. 

“You have to go,” she says, squeezing both the hands and a smile on her face. “No, listen. I already knew you would stay here if I asked, and that’s why I didn’t. That wouldn’t be right. Shadow Weaver can’t influence you too, I refuse to let her. And, anyway,” she adds, before Glimmer can object—and sure as hell she did have one objection up the pipe. “Bow is right. He’s never had the chance to see a magical town before. You two are going to have so much fun! Please." She shuts Glimmer’s frustrated growl before it scares Swift Wind, just by looking at her dead in the eyes. “Have fun for me too, okay? You can bring back something as a souvenir! That would be awesome.”

Sometimes, Glimmer looks ready to set off like a literal bomb. She breathes instead, slow through the nose and squeezing Adora’s hand back _hard_. 

“Next time,” she says then, and doesn’t that sound like she’s casting an actual spell, “we’ll figure out a way to go together or we aren’t going at all.”

“It's a promise,” Bow adds, solemn like they’re forging some secret bond. 

Adora smiles and waves until they’re out of the portrait, the Fat Lady complaining because she had to stay on her tiptoes until they decided what to do. 

“Well, it looks like it’s just you and me then, Swift Wind,” Adora says, falling back into the armchair, a sigh creeping up her throat. 

“Not that any of you has actually taken the trouble to invite me?” he says.

Adora growls, head sinking into the backrest.

*

The quill flies higher, higher, then it hangs from above. Swift Wind tries to catch it with a lazy paw.

“Don’t you need it to write the essay?” he asks, head turned upside down like he's an owl instead of a talking cat.

The essay is still a very blank piece of parchment spread onto the table, right under Adora’s head.

“I’m casting nonverbal charms, shouldn’t I get an applause instead of a reprimand?”

“I don’t think I can applaud, I don’t have hands,” Swift Wind says, still watching the quill closely with dilated pupils.

“You shouldn’t even have a proper phonatory system but you can apparently reprimand just fine.”

That’s a bit low, considering that he’s talking because of her clumsy casting in the first place. 

She doesn’t really get his rebuke, too busy watching the quill fall back down on the table. 

“Oh sweet baby dragons, I can’t!” she bursts out, head pounding. “I’m out. Don’t let any first-year steal my stuff,” she adds, pointing at Swift Wind’s nose when she’s already one foot outside the common room. 

Their protest, both his and the Fat Lady’s, don’t reach her; she’s already pacing down the corridor as fast as she can. 

“Unfair,” she repeats, turning the word on her tongue and trying to suppress the tickling, nervous energy that grew inside her during the last hour—she actually resisted less than an entire hour before snapping; just great, she’s a buffoon, that’s what. She didn’t ask, she couldn’t ask Glimmer and Bow to stay with her but, hell, she can’t stop thinking about them hanging out with everybody else in Hogsmeade while she’s stuck in the castle only because Shadow Weaver is a terrible parent.

The corridors are empty save from the occasional pair of tiny first and second years; Adora is damn sure that the only people staying at the castle must be her and…

“Entrapta!” she calls, banging on the knocker on the door that leads to the Ravenclaw dorm. Of course Entrapta will be there, tinkering with some incredibly advanced and dangerous magic! At least Adora will have someone to talk to, even if staying in the range of Entrapta’s experiments usually means risking one’s limbs. 

“One night—”

“What,” Adora says, to her hand. 

“One night,” the eagle-shaped knocker insists, ruffling its feathers. “A queen, a king and a princess were on a boat.”

“Okay,” Adora tells it, blinking. “And what does it mean?”

“It’s a riddle,” the knocker says, like it’s really tired of being asked stupid questions. “You must solve it to go in, which I guess was your intention?”

“Yes.”

“Well then,” it says. “One night, a queen a king and a princess were on a boat.”

“I don’t know anything about princesses.”

“The queen, the king and the princess fell off the boat. Who was left?”

“What?”

“On the boat? Who was… Do I have to tell it again?”

Adora breathes, forehead pressed onto the door and wind whistling high pitched in her ears. 

“If you must,” she concedes, tired.

The eagle nods.

“One night… Oh, you’re lucky,” it says, and before Adora can actually understand why should she be lucky today, given that she feels honestly unlucky and dumb and sad, the door moves, leaving her to stumble onward.

She doesn’t splat onto the carpentry, though, something keeping her from the collar of her uniform. Someone, who has a long, furry tail.

“Hey Adora,” Catra says, getting her back right with a swift, infuriating dance move and all that Adora can think is, once again, _unfair_. “You’ve decided to defect the red house too and try out the blue one? Please, tell me it’s the last one, I don’t know about blue and silver but yellow and black would clash tragically with your hair.”

“What,” Adora repeats, because at least that’s a safe bet. 

“Yellow and black,” Catra repeats, one centimeter from her chin. “The losers’ House?”

Adora blinks in front of her mismatched eyes until she snaps. 

“Catra,” she coughs, her brain wobbling like it has been replaced with a bunch of wobbleworm. “What are you doing here?”

“She answered the riddle,” the knocker says. “It was more difficult than yours.”

“What was hers?” Catra asks, fluffy ears twitching with genuine curiosity. 

The knocker clears his metal throat.

“One night, a queen, a king and a princess…”

“Walk into a bar?” Catra asks, while Adora blurts out “who cares!” one hand on the eagle’s beak and another spread in between to distance herself from Catra. 

“I was just searching for…”

“Too late, mad-genius Rapunzel isn’t in her tower,” Catra tells her, leaning on the jamb of the arch and flailing a piece of paper that sports Entrapta’s messy handwriting in bright purple ink-gel. “Apparently, she went to ‘assist to the social experiment’.”

Adora blinks at her quoting fingers.

“Of course she would." She tries to recompose herself somewhat, one hand at the wand in her pocket because you can never be sure with Catra, she’s not above throwing hexes unprompted—Shadow Weaver taught her well, just like she taught Adora. 

Catra circles her, showing absolute disrespect for Adora’s own personal spaces despite being pretty darn finicky with her own. 

“What do you want, Catra?” Adora spits, feeling always so bad under the scrutiny of her eyes, like she’s done something to wrong her just by existing at all—she has asked herself if that’s exactly how Catra feels every time she has to stay in the same room with Shadow Weaver. And ended up feeling bad for that too. 

Catra doesn’t seem to mind—she’s probably having fun, really. 

“Me? I told you, I was just looking for the loony nerd. And, anyway, I can do what I want. As far as I know, Gryffindorks don’t own the castle, even if you bunch act like you do.”

“We don’t—I don’t… Whatever,” Adora says, feeling the irritation adding to her already pretty unbalanced stockpile of worries. She steps out of the room, well aware that Catra is right there, feet light on the stone floor as the door closes behind them with a loud thud and a protest; no one is going to answer that stupid riddle. “Just get out of my way, Catra. I’m not in the mood today.”

“Not in the mood for what, meeting people inside a school full of people? Heck, you’re _so_ self-entitled,” Catra rebuts, in a sigh of fake patience. “Don’t worry, everybody knows you and I don’t have anything to do with each other anymore.”

“That’s the last of my concerns,” Adora says. She covers four steps on the spiral staircase with one leap, but Catra is already at her back, soft on her feet and she’s always been fast—fast at dodging and ducking and run. Fast with comebacks—and weren’t those funny, in places and times where there was so little to laugh about. 

“Of course, and what is tormenting your poor, poor entitled mind on this delightful morning?”

Adora _snorts_. 

“And why for the ever-loving beard of Merlin would _you_ want to know?” So that she could make it worse, probably; that’s just how Catra does her things, teasing and pushing and provoking until you snap and then it’s somehow your fault for not being patient enough—and Adora is so, so stupid. She’s always been.

“Get your head out of your ass, Adora,” she says—as per demonstration. “It’s not like I’m interested in what you do. I just thought that someone had to point out how much of a freak you are.”

That’s—fine. First and foremost, Adora breathes. Bow is right about Catra, about her provoking only to get Adora in trouble, and what is worst is that she usually succeeds. She’s not going to let her get under her skin again, she has to focus, she has to… She has to _strangle_ her. 

She screams, but the sound that comes out is nothing more than a compressed whistle, as the water fills up her ears and nose and mouth. She coughs and the bubble pops, leaving her wet and pissed at the end of the staircase.

“Catra!”

She’s laughing, so hard she needed to bend on the banister, one hand pressed on her mouth to avoid waking up the entirety of Hogwarts’ ghosts. 

“What, I thought you would appreciate it, it’s my modified bubble-head charm!” She’s grinning and laughing still—what a _jerk_. “Instead of keeping the water out it keeps it inside… If felt appropriate, since you’re already living inside your own bubble anyway.”

“I can’t believe you, you’re such… You know what? I don’t care,” Adora says, and she’s already casting a drying spell on her clothes, even if her hair is still trying to drown her. She stomps away, decided to ignore her and every single one of her instincts that are screaming to not offer her back again.

Catra is light on her feet, but Adora can still hear her steps when she has already turned around the corner. 

She strengthens her grip on the wand, ready to cast a shield charm, but when Catra jumps at her side, her wand is nowhere to be found. 

“Come on, what’s up with you today. You’re no fun _at all_.”

Adora throws her a glance and Catra rolls her eyes, hands intertwined behind her messy mane. 

“I mean, not that you usually are or anything. You’re the most boring person in the whole universe, sure as hell in this castle and this castle is already pretty boring on its own, so…”

“So why are you bothering me!” Adora snaps, the soles of her boots screeching under the solemn stonewalls. “If I am so bad and boring and… If you hate me, why are you bothering me at all!”

There’s a brief, pointy moment during which Adora is almost sure Catra felt slapped—but it’s gone already the exact next second, when she squints at her with open malice, eyes pressed into thin lines as she lets out a cruel chuckle. 

“Gosh, you’re hilarious,” she says, and brushes away a very theatrical tear. “Whatever, it’s been fun but I do have more interesting stuff to do out of this dumb castle. Catch you at Potions, have fun being a loser!”

Adora – it’s such a primal response: she growls, hair still dripping wet and ears fuming red. It’s so frustrating, everything is so darn difficult since she’s been sorted in Gryffindor, like it was a fault instead of just something that happened—something that she felt was right, and she hasn’t really felt that many right things before, but this, this…

That’s what made Catra furious, the fact that she chose it. The hat told her she could have been such a good Slytherin, but Adora just didn’t want to. She didn’t want to fulfill Shadow Weaver plans, spending yet another eleven years of her life complying with her expectations, she just wanted to be free—to _feel_ free, for a change. 

“Wait a sec,” she tells to the painting of the knight on the fat pony. “Catra!”

She launches herself on the corridor, backward and running. She’s already gone, how come she’s already gone, she can’t be that fast, she can’t…

“You really are crazy,” she says, plopping down from… Form whatever high place she chose as a catwalk. 

“What did you mean ‘out of this castle’? You know how to get out of the castle?”

“You don’t?” she says and that’s an answer already, because she’s just so genuinely surprised for a change—not fast enough at hiding it, too. “You’re the most naive person inside this sad excuse of a school and I know Scorpia.”

Adora growls, and she’s already caught her wrist because Catra is fast, but not faster than a golden snitch. 

“What,” she hisses back, ears lowered. 

“I need to get out of the castle. How do I do it?”

Catra looks at her with a tilted eyebrow, pondering, until she snatches her harm back.

“There are secret passages, obviously,” she says and looks delighted at the thought of knowing something Adora doesn’t. “But they’re pretty difficult to find. And they don’t always take you where you want to go.”

“Hogsmeade,” Adora tells her. “I just… Is there a passage that gets to Hogsmeade?”

Catra studies her like she’s suddenly grown a pair of impressive horns. 

“There are, like, five,” she says, smug smirk already up. She steps around Adora, circling like she was a rodent. “I can show you if you like.”

This is going to end _bad_. 

“Let’s go then.”

So, so _bad_. 

*

They used to sneak out. 

Shadow Weaver has never exactly been the most attentive person, always a bit too engrossed in whatever spell or brewing she was inventing that day—and you shouldn’t interrupt her ever, or suffer the consequences of her outbursts. 

So, they used to sneak out, from the front door and the back door and the windows. From the chimney once, and that was one hell of an adventure, especially when Catra’s butt caved in on Adora’s face and she had to push her through the rest of the way until Catra’s nails finally grasped the edge of the chimney. 

It’s like being there again, when Adora signals her for an empty corridor and Catra jumps behind the statue of the old, hunched-back witch on the third floor. 

“Dissendium,” she says, tapping on the hunch with the tip of her holly wand. 

The passages open on a tunnel, narrow and dark. 

“Lumos,” Adora whispers, right before the opening closes behind her. “You can see in the dark?” she has to ask, because Catra is already walking. 

“I just know the route,” she answers, which isn’t exactly exhaustive in itself but does make sense. 

“So you just, usually sneak out of school once in a while to do what exactly?”

“None of your business, Adora,” she says, mocking tone back in place. 

That’s enough to make Adora pout, but at least the only visible part of Catra at this point is the tail that’s still in the range of Adora’s lumos. 

Maybe it’s been a bad idea. Maybe Catra is going to curse her and just leave her inside a dead-end tunnel. Adora didn’t tell anybody where she was going, she just trusted Catra like a dumbass—like they were still children, like Catra hasn’t tried to get her in trouble since the first time they ended up sitting at different tables in the Great Hall. 

It’s just so stupid. Entrapta isn’t in Gryffindor but that didn’t stop Glimmer from befriending her—nothing stops Glimmer from befriending literally anybody if she really puts her mind to it, but the point is: it can work. You don’t have to sleep in the same dormitory to be friends. And she and Catra have been so much more—allies, comrades; they’ve always had each other backs and…

It’s false, because Adora somehow survived not being sorted into Slytherin with some incredulity and a puzzling “the Sorting happens way too early. This must be a fase” scorn from Shadow Weaver, while Catra being sorted exactly in the right place has won her nothing more than a tepid acknowledgment and the promise of at least don’t taint the House’s good name. 

Adora had never been able to defend her from this kind of thing. Sometimes, she made it worse just by _existing_.

“Hey, Catra,” she starts, walking in the dark, walls pressing on her.

“We don’t need to talk, you know?”

“Are you going to stay here for Christmas?”

“Like usual,” she says. “I guess you’re going to stay at Sparkle’s house. Is it as glittering as her whole person? I don’t get how you manage to look at her without sunglasses.”

“I was thinking about staying here too,” Adora says. 

“Scorpia will stay,” Catra answers, even if it wasn’t a question. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”

Sometimes—sometimes it seems so simple. Simpler, like it was back then. 

Glimmer and Bow don’t get it and Adora knows why they don’t: Catra is abrasive and mean; she’s pure, stereotypical Slytherin as Glimmer thinks stereotypical Slytherins are. 

“Too slow, we’re not gonna make it… Come on Adora!” She catches her hand and pulls. They run, like a couple children, the light from the wand bouncing around, waving.

“Not so fast!”

“What are you talking about, you were going backward!”

They run on the slope, she laughs and it’s brighter than lumos. Everything is heightened with Catra, everything is always quick and adventurous and self-destructive and so, so darn funny.

“You’re out of your mind,” Adora says, panting and laughing still, as the slope decline into a more manageable straight path.

Their hands are still intertwined, Catra’s skin darker against Adora’s under the light spell. 

“Your face is,” Catra rebuts, nonsensical and giggly. It echoes under the tunnel and that’s when she suddenly gets subdued; she gets her hand back and regains her pace, walking before Adora with her tail swinging by as a flag. 

“It’s there,” she says, after what seems like an entire hour of walking silently in a line.

There is a slight beam of light cutting sharp into the dark from above. 

Adora raises her wand, only for Catra to signal her to put it away. She then jumps in the dark, catching at something and pushing. 

The hinges creak quietly as she peeks out, ears lowered and tail still.

“Come on,” she declares, and she’s already crawling out of the trapdoor, letting the light come inside. 

She offers one hand and Adora has to blink, both from the light and the memory of a much smaller Catra, stretching that same hand at her to help her out of the stupid chimney. 

She lets her help today too, and it feels right, like it should be. Until she gets a look around at least.

“Where the hell—”

That same clawed hand gets pressed on her mouth, while Catra raises a finger at her own.

“Shush, we’re inside Honeyduke’s cellar, we must be quiet.”

“Honeywhat?” Adora starts under her palm, before she shakes her head, feet still dangling from the open trapdoor. “Forget about it, how do we get out?”

“Are you in a hurry?” Catra asks, smug smirk back in place, eyes sharp.

“I… Well, we’re in a secret cellar under some kind of shop, I think? And I…”

“Didn’t your best sparkling friends forever tell you everything about Hogsmeade?”

“Bow has never been here before,” Adora says, as they shift behind a pile of boxes full of something colored.

“Oh, sure, your mudbloo—”

“Don’t,” Adora snaps, wand pressed at Catra’s chest, teeth gritted. “Why do you always have to be so mean—”

“Oh, sure that’s not politically correct enough now. You didn’t give a shit when it was Shadow Weaver the one…”

“Because I didn’t know!”

“What do you think _mud_ means, you dumbass?” Catra says, in as squeaking mock-laugh. 

“I just… I didn’t really think about it,” Adora says, loosening the grip. 

Catra blinks, tilted eyebrow and sideway smile. 

“Yeah, you didn’t really think about lots of stuff,” she says, so matter-of-factly that Adora’s brain just short-circuits, like a spell cast wrong, until she finds herself pressing directly on the wall while Catra has already slipped from her grip with no effort at all. 

“Just let’s get the fuck out before someone comes down to get more… I’ll never understand what people like about Every Flavour Beans,” she says, popping one inside her mouth from the biggest barrel right beside the stair. Adora watches her wiggle her nose, ears twitching. “Uh, salmon? Could have been worse.”

“Wait, Catra!” she calls, but she’s already gone, exiting from the door of the cellar like it was just perfectly normal for non-employee to come from there.

The door swings on its hinges as Adora comes out too, trying to blend into the crowd, searching for Catra’s tail in the colorful mess of candies-regurgitating shelves.

“Can I help you?” the lady with the shop uniform asks, and Adora can only gape as she tries to recalibrate herself. She snatches a package of something from the first shelf.

“Yes, no. No, thanks, I’m fine, I’m taking this. Thanks.”

The old lady squints, but she still accepts her tinkling handful of sickles so that she can get her…

“Cockroach clusters?” 

“We don’t sell that many of those,” the lady tells her, like she’s some kind of amazing being.

“Can’t guess why,” Adora says. “I love ‘em.”

And with that she’s finally out in the street, bag of disgusting sweets pressed at her chest, no Catra in sight and absolutely no idea what she’s going to do. 

*

Usually, Adora has a plan. And then a back-up plan for the plan, because her plans tend to blow out pretty bad just like Entrapta’s experiments. It’s not that she’s anxious or anything, she just likes to be informed—make informed decisions. 

“Well-lit crowded pub or creepy haunted house? Well-lit crowded pub or…”

“Adora?”

Adora is pointing the wand already, stable on her feet while her heart races like mad inside her chest. 

Scorpia’s chest, that’s what’s occupying the entirety of her field of vision. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says, voice high pitched and both hands raised. “I was searching for Catra, maybe you know where she is?”

“Why would I,” Adora rebuts, hugging her packet of cockroach clusters. 

Scorpia blinks down at her from her impressive height. 

“Well, since you two used to be best friends and now I’m the new best friend but sometimes it’s so _difficult_ to be a good friend at all, you know? I for sure try hard, but I can’t exactly tell what Catra is really thinking most of the time so…”

“I don’t know where she is,” Adora says, hastily before she ends up staging an entire psychoanalytic session with Catra’s new best friend. Tall and pretty as Scorpia is, Adora doesn’t really get what’s up with the both of them but, knowing Catra, she honestly doubts that she has found anything resembling a new best friend, and, anyway, that’s totally not her business in any capacity. 

“Oh, well, let’s search together, then!”

Adora tries—she totally tries to say no. No way. But Scorpia has a special way to be bossy that doesn’t have anything to do with the usual Slytherin methods. She is just so _nice_.

“Scorpia, let me go!” Useless. She's already been picked up from the ground like to be tossed over Scorpia’s shoulder and carried around like a sack of potatoes. 

“Oh, you’re not a hugger?” she asks, without letting go at all. “Catra isn’t too. Is this a best friend thing? I’d like to know. Oh, I have an idea!”

“What,” Adora growls, head swinging helplessly over Scorpia’s massive shoulder. 

“You’ve been close to Catra and that makes me so jealous, even if I understand it’s no one’s fault… Anyway, you should tell me stories about her! Then I too can be in the loop, you know? Maybe better understand some of her…”

“I just wanted to get out of the school,” Adora whines, but Scorpia’s still going on strong on how much helpful Adora would be to her quest of becoming Catra’s new bff. 

“Wait, you were searching for her?” she asks, resigned to be transported like a box. “You knew she would have been here even if she doesn’t have permission?”

“Of course,” Scorpia says, looking pretty proud about it. “She told me, you know? We had a date! I mean,” she adds, because Adora has jerked so fast that she slipped off her shoulder. Scorpia puts her down with a surprisingly delicate touch. “More like a rendezvous? A meeting.” Adora doesn’t do much more than frown. “Okay, she just told me she would probably pass in front of Honeydukes around this hour. Today. It was very, very generic.”

It’s quite something. Scorpia is quite something. Adora growls behind a palm pressed on her face.

“You’re definitely too good for her, you know?”

Scorpia blinks, looking from above.

“Oh, that’s something I get a lot. Is that why you left her?”

“I don’t… I didn’t leave her, that doesn’t make sense! And I never thought that I was—” better than her? Never, even if that was the soundtrack of their whole childhood, played by Shadow Weaver at full volume at any given chance.

Less mean? That’s debatable. 

“Oh, aren’t those your friends?” Scorpia says, cutting one of her bubbly sentences and Adora’s own trainwreck of thoughts in the process.

Adora blinks, trying to process: too many information and Glimmer is always so sparkly you’re bound to get overwhelmed. Bow, otherwise, ends up spitting whatever it is that he was drinking.

“Butterbear!” he yells, before Adora has actually the chance to answer the bouquet of question marks that are perfectly evident on Glimmer’s face even while she jumps to hug her.

“What are you doing here!”

“Butterbeer!” Bow screams. “You have to try it. Oh, hi Scorpia,” he adds, as Glimmer too registers her and flips switches from enthusiastic to alert in the span of an instant.

“And what are you doing here?” she asks, aggressive, feet planted on the ground and wand ready.

Scorpia blinks.

“It’s Hogsmeade’s day. Everybody is here,” she answers. “I mean, everybody apart from Catra apparently. Did you happen to see her?”

She’s so hopeful that even Glimmer can’t really stay mad at her and Bow is outright empathetic. 

“No, I’m sorry. But you should come and get some butterbeer—”

“Bow!” Glimmer yells. “She’s evil! She’s helped Catra sabotage your potion midterm just three days ago?”

“Ah, sure, right. Yeah, that was mean.”

“It was part of a plan. Just not a very well-thought one,” Scorpia tells him, like that explains it. It doesn’t, of course, but Adora is pretty sure that the actual explanation wouldn’t be that much better. “Anyway, since you haven’t seen Catra I guess I’ll have to search somewhere else. Adora, what’s her favorite color?”

“I think you should ask her,” she says, deadpanning. 

Scorpia nods, solemn. 

“You’re right, that would be way more meaningful. You aren’t dumb at all,” she adds, and it would have been lovely if it didn’t sound like an insult.

“What did just happen,” Bow asks, as Scorpia waves at them while walking down the street.

“You’re here!” Glimmer screams instead, and Adora gets squeezed into a hug. “Sorry, I mean… Why are you here? How!”

“Oh. Secret passage?” Should be enough of an explanation, right? “There’s a secret passage beside the statue of the hunch-backed witch on the third floor? It leads right into that candy shop’s cellar!”

“Honeydukes! I love Honeydukes, we already got lots of stuff for you to try and… Glimmer,” Bow says, frowning. “I think we bought all the wrong stuff. She likes cockroach clusters.”

Adora looks where both of them are fixing their eyes with shocked disgust.

The packet of cockroach clusters crinkles at her chest.

Adora is starting to think this was the worst idea ever.

*

It’s the best idea ever. The best place ever. Best people ever. Best drink ever.

Bow tries to take the butterbeer back.

“Okay, slow down with those, Adora."

“You know butterbeer isn't strong at all, right?” Glimmer says, while nursing her own between her hands. 

“Yeah, it’s not the alcohol that worries me,” he says, over the sound of the food Adora is demolishing.

“I didn’t really have breakfast,” Adora says, or tries while she scarfs down her third turkey sandwich. She snatches her second butterbeer back and gulps it down. “And this stuff really is good! Ah, I’m so happy I followed Catra…”

“You did what?” Glimmer asks, voice high-pitched until the last syllable, when evidently Bow’s foot landed on her under the table. 

“Oh, yeah. She knows secret passages.”

“Of course she does,” Glimmer rebuts, seething. “She knows everything vicious and twisted and… what’s that,” she squints at the fogged window that overlooks over the street.

Adora is still eating. When the sparkling flaming rocket blazes through the window, crushing it, the bite of turkey she was munching on falls down at the exact same time she jumps up, wand ready and shield spell on lips.

The impact is so strong her whole arm shakes, while a glittering flare of blue and red and purple darts above. It’s mostly purple—it rolls and shrieks until it stops right on the counter in a mess of wooden splinters and broken glass. 

Adora steps forward, as Bow and Glimmer stand beside her, wands raised in the midst of growling customers. The patron, lady Rosmerta, looks ready to kill.

The bundle of black and purple and dust coughs. 

“Twelve-thirteen, November tenth. The project isn’t exactly going as planned, note to self: implement brakes. Oh, hi Adora! Hi Glimm…”

Madama Rosmerta’s hair is on fire. So are her eyes.

“Out. Of. My. Pub!”

*

Bow looks positively aghast.

“So, we’ve been, like. Permanently Banned from the Three Broomsticks?”

Adora grinds her teeth and Glimmer face is already behind her hands. 

“Tecnically,” Entrapta starts, index raised and smile intact. “It’s not permanently, just until the owner dies, and she’s pretty old already.”

Glimmer _growls_. 

“I’m so sorry, Bow,” Adora says, because she may have doubled the damage with her protection spell. She’s pretty sure the table wouldn’t have exploded otherwise. 

Bow looks at her, eyes peeled. 

“What are you talking about! This is awesome!” he says. “We’ve been banned from a pub like total badasses! Best day of my life!”

Entrapta nods.

"And I’ve gathered a lot of valuable data to improve the landing part of Emily!”

“Emily?”

“Oh, it’s how I call the broomstick." The floating splinter beside her flows about in what is an unmistakable, if inconsequential, dance of approval.

“Let’s just hope my mom doesn’t get a word about this accident. Even if she probably already knows because she’s scary and the world is unfair.”

“No need to worry about that yet!” Bow says, one arm hanged around her shoulders. “Adora is here, and Entrapta too. Let’s do something fun!”

Adora starts scanning the street. 

“What people usually do in Hogsmeade?”

Apparently, people in Hogsmeade walk a lot and try to stop Entrapta from improving every single magical trick at Zonko’s. It’s a strenuous task.

“I need more alcohol,” Adora decides when they’ve finally come out of the place with, surprisingly, all limbs intact despite the weight of all the magical inventions Entrapta decided to purchase for the sake of magical investigation.

“I’ll have to take everything apart,” she’s still explaining, mostly to Bow, since Glimmer is weighing on Adora’s arm to balance out the bags.

“I hate to say it, but me too.”

They look at each other, then at the angular outline of the very last building down the street. Bow points at the sign: it reads ‘The Hog’s Head”.

“That looks like a pub.”

Glimmer deadpans. 

“That looks like the shadiest place ever?”

“But they do sell butterbeers.”

“You have a problem, Adora.”

Bow is already pushing Entrapta foreward.

“Come on guys, let’s try it, I’m sure it’s better from the inside!”

Glimmer shrugs.

“Let's just hope they don't serve human flesh.” 

It doesn’t look like they’re going to be murdered, but the place is indeed uninviting, filthy on every surface, from the floor to the tables, mostly empty, to the counter and the grimy rag the bartender is using to wipe a cracked mug. 

“Well,” Glimmer starts, teeth gritted. “Isn’t this a welcoming place.”

She turns toward Bow and Adora laughs, because instead of finding a reasonably put off expression, Bow is beaming, eyes full of sparkles. 

“This is incredible. Look at the grime! Such an authentic place!”

“I bet it’s full of ancient artifacts!” Entrapta screeches.

“I bet not,” Glimmer adds, but she’s talking to Adora, because the other two have already sprinted forward.

Adora pats her on the shoulder and she sighs.

“Let’s sit down, my feet are killing me. We should have levitated all that…”

“Oh no,” Adora says, squashed under the weight of Entrapta’s stuff.

The glass glares, stopping mid-air for a fraction of a second as the tail falls down, hanging from the stool and Catra’s head tilts to the side, pupils growing large for even less than a moment before they shrink again to highlight a mean smile. 

“Hey, Adora,” she says. “Missed me already?”

Of course she would be here, in the shadiest of places. The glass in her hand definitely isn’t butterbeer, the smell of something way stronger coming from it as she swings it idly, long nails tapping on the counter.

“Whatever,” Glimmer says and makes a point of turning her back at Catra and Scorpia. “Let’s go somewhere else. This place stinks.”

Bow is going to faint, because the other customers have turned simultaneously to look at them with hostility and as much as Adora doesn’t really care, Entrapta is completely, utterly unaware of it as she steps towards the counter.

“Oh, this is interesting—I bet some of those would be incredible fuels. Bartender! Can you give me—”

“Entrapta!” Glimmer growls, and Catra’s snicker sounds like firecrackers.

“Come here, Rapunzel. I know what you should try—”

“Don’t give her—”

“She’s a big girl,” Catra rebuts, waving a hand at Adora without even looking at her. She leaps over the counter and the bartender throws her a glance.

“No feet on the counter,” she says, and Scorpia laughs.

“Cut me some slack, Huntara. We aren’t inside that stuffy school.”

Glimmer turns to throw the most blazing of glances in the direction of the tall, brawny bartender. She’s cleaning up glasses with very sloppy swings of her stocky wand; she tilts an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“What. She’s a regular,” she says, and she’s so well-built and imposing that Adora ends up hating herself for the pang of admiration she feels both towards her and Catra; of course she would find a way to win over the most intimidating witch in the village; of course she’s sitting on top of the counter as if she owns the place, all busy choosing a teeny tiny glass for Entrapta to try out colorful liquids.

Entrapta is already coughing dark green smoke, cheeks flushed. “This tastes just like machinery oil and acromantula venom!”

“Do I want to know when you tried acromantula venom?” Catra asks, over Scorpia's laughter.

“Oh, but the interesting bit is how I got it!” Entrapta rebuts, and she is positively delighted as she recalls an almost deadly trip inside the Forbidden Forest, loud enough that half the pub seems to be engrossed in the story.

Adora is still blinking when Glimmer’s hand grabs her to drag her away. She kicks the table before sitting down on the bench.

“I can’t believe her!”

Bow plops himself right at her side.

“Come on, Glimmer. You know Entrapta doesn’t mean anything bad. She’s just enthusiastic.”

“About Catra?” She sounds wounded. 

Adora turns back toward the counter: Entrapta is still chatting, hands flailing about while Scorpia watches her with big curious eyes and Catra… Catra is sneering in all the right places, but her eyes shift on the side to meet Adora’s own as she sips from her glass and then licks her lips—

A bunch of glasses hit the table hard enough to make it wobble under Adora’s elbows. She sees all white when she bites her tongue.

“Guess Slyterjerks and Griffindumbs still haven’t found a way to stop getting on each other nerves? Boring,” Huntara says, contradicting herself with a fairly amused expression. 

Adora makes a point of turning her head to the other side as fast as she’s grabbed her dusty bottle of butterbeer. It’s snowing in a slow cadence, and over the fogged window the village has started to disappear in grey shadows. Uphill, shoved aside, there’s a gloomy, messy pile of wooden boards with a roof on top that seems to be straight out of a horror book.

“That’s the Shrieking Shack. People don’t go there,” Huntara says, like she read her mind.

Before Adora can do more than tilt an eyebrow, Entrapta has already flown over the table, knocking Bow’s butterbeer and all her Zonko’s purchases in her wake.

“The Shrieking Shack! It’s—”

“One of the most haunted place in Great Britain!” Bow ends and Glimmer is already double facepalming.

“Haunted?” Adora asks.

Entrapta grabs her shoulders, maniacal expression in place. 

“Or that’s what they want us to believe!”

“What do you mean,” Bow asks, and his eyes are sparkling almost as much as hers. Glimmer’s growl intensifies as her head slips between her arms.

“I mean—I’m not sure ghosts are responsible. Something way bigger went on back there.”

She is deadly serious and the light in her eyes is a bit nut too. Bow is frowning.

“And what do you think—”

Entrapta takes in the sharpest breath, crushing Adora’s eardrum in the process.

“You want to know about my theory? No one ever wants to know about my theory!”

She doesn’t wait for more than a nod from Bow before she starts talking.

*

During a childhood spent with Catra, Adora has asked herself ‘how did I end up here’ many many times, but this time he has even less of a clue.

“We can’t just—it’s trespassing!” Bow yelps. Entrapta was the first to climb over the fence and Catra followed her with one neat leap. 

“You scared? Isn’t courage the distinctive trait of your house?”

Glimmer is ready to throw hands.

“I’m not scared. I’ll show you.”

Bow is whining at this point, but Glimmer has already kicked the wooden beam that Scorpia broke and was intent on putting back with so much caution.

“Glimmer, don’t let her—”

“What, Adora?” Catra says, and when the fuck did she moved so close? She tilts her head to look at her with her most curious, innocent kitty eyes. “Are you scared too? I mean, it wouldn’t be a surprise, just another one of a million disappointment. You used to be cooler than this.”

“You really think this can have any effect on me, Catra?” She stands taller than her, broader and strong. They’re not little children anymore. “Try again. We won’t fall for your tricks, we won’t get in trouble so that you can—”

“Herr… guys?”

“No, Bow, this has to be clear. We aren’t stupid, Catra, I know you and all your dirty—”

“No, duh, honestly.” Scopria’s voice is quivering. “There’s a problem.”

“What is it,” Catra rebuts, eyes still glued to Adora’s.

Scorpia doesn’t answer; she points one of her incredibly red mittens toward the creepy shadow of the Shrieking Shack uphill.

“We’ve lost Entrapta,” she says, then frowns, looking up in the air. “Oh, and Emily too.”

Glimmer growls harder than anyone, but she’s the first one to start walking on the steep path toward the house.

It’s more of a house than a shack; Adora looks at its imposing, crooked built that looms from above as the snow keeps on twirling, blinking white against a stone-grey sky.

“This is such a bad idea.”

“Just calm down, Bow. If we won’t be killed by a ghost my mom will kill us for sure, so no need to worry.”

“I don’t get why you thought that would help me to calm down,” Bow says, but sighs half a laugh when Glimmer pats him on the shoulder.

“At least it isn’t shrieking?” Scorpia tries, a hint of humor in her voice.

“You heard Entrapta. The house has been silent for decades at this point,” Bow explains, and of course he had a whole Hogsmeade tourist guide stuck inside his pockets—he’s probably the biggest expert on extension charms in the whole of Hogwarts, professors included. “The Shrieking Shack has been deemed haunted back in the eighties and since then no one has put foot inside! Albus Dumbledore himself was apparently very convinced of the dangerous forces that inhabit the place and he was the first one to—”

“That sounds like a load of dragon shit.” Catra is already studying in between the cracks of the barred window, eyes narrowed.

It really is completely silent if not for the snow creaking under their own feet. But Adora grew up in a place that Catra, her and the other orphans used to call the Fright Zone, so she doesn’t really feel all the tension. She frowns at the window too.

“Entrapta?” she calls. “Are you inside?”

A loud thump. Bow startles and squeezes Glimmer’s arm hard enough to make her whine.

“Come on, she might be in trouble,” she says, wand ready. “Let me try something—hominum revelio!”

A draft of silent magic flows from the tip of Glimmer’s wand. They waits, eyes narrowed and ears lowered in Catra’s case.

“She’s on the first floor,” Glimmer declares, proud, and Catra scoffs.

“Well, not like you needed a spell to know. Her footprints stop here,” she says, nodding at the snow. 

Bow is examining the depth of the last two prints.

“She must have used Emily.”

“So now we’re calling it Emily too?” Glimmer tries, but Scorpia is already calling both Entrapta and Emily, hands cupped at the side of her mouth, louder than the wind howling in between the cracks.

“We shouldn’t yell—”

“The spell said only one person is inside, Bow,” Glimmer tells him. “I don’t understand what you’re worried about. It’s just an old, dusty house—I’d be more worried to get inside it with _them_.”

Catra rolls her eyes.

“You’re not exactly my first choice of company for a Saturday evening, Sparkle.”

Glimmer is going to punch her square in the face and Adora isn't going to stop her.

“Let’s get this done with. Alohomora!” The handle shakes and turns to the side, but the lock stays shut. Glimmer frowns just as Catra starts laughing, bent in two.

“Awesome of you, failing a first-year spell!" 

“Alohomora,” Adora tries too, wand rigid in her hands. The doorknob shakes again, but they might as well just sneeze on it, which Bows promptly does when he gets closer to inspect the lock.

“Maybe there’s a protection charm?”

Catra sighs, and flickers him right on the forehead.

“Step away. Look how it’s done, Adora." Before they can even raise their hands, she’s already cast a reducto, making the door blow up in splinters and the whole shack quivering. She then kicks away the last bit of mangled wood and steps inside, Scorpia already following.

“We’re dead,” Bow says, eyes glassy as he follows the last bit of her tail disappearing in the dark. “It’s actually nice, because this way at least we won’t get expelled.”

Glimmer pinches him on the cheek.

“Come on, let’s go. We can’t leave Entrapta alone with those two.”

They can’t, but that doesn’t mean they have to like it. Adora keeps the wand up, lumos glowing on top as she too enters.

The inside is small and pretty unassuming; it reeks of mold and neglect, pieces of furniture are scattered around like bony carcasses. Adora lets the light slide around them fast, to jolt it up toward the closest door, where two shiny circles blinks back at her. She feels her breath wedge inside her throat before she understands—Catra's fault, obviously: her eyes twinkle again when she too lights up the tip of her wand. 

“Don't be ridiculous, It’s just an empty, stinky, old house. Rapunzel, come back here, we’re going out!”

No answer.

“She’s probably really engrossed in whatever data she thinks she’s gathering,” Glimmer says, and huffs. “Let’s just go get her—”

“Guys, guys—can you just tone it down a notch? We don’t want to wake anything up,” says Bow and when they all turn toward him, eyebrows tilted, he opens both palms, incredulous. “Ghosts are real! You saw them in the Castle! And these ones are supposed to be really violent and dangerous and—”

“Oh for Merlin’s socks sake, you’re such a mudblo—”

Adora’s eyes were watching Glimmer’s wand; that’s why she doesn’t get what happens until she registers her other hand, fingers still closed in a fist, and Catra flying to crash inside the case of the grandfather clock. The pendulum coughs an ominous chime that resonates under the ceiling and down at their feet.

Adora is the first one to react—the shield charms stops whatever hexes Scorpia was throwing at Glimmer, and sparkles bounce back to send a chair crash on the wall.

“Ops,” Scorpia says, blinking. “Wildcat, are you okay?!”

“Cut it with that stupid nickname, Scorpia. Like Twinkle’s spells could ever land actual damage.” She says that, but she’s coughing dust and there are splinters caught in her hair. She sweeps at her strategically ripped jeans and throws a deathly glare at Glimmer, who reciprocates with the same fiery passion. Bow steps in between them.

“You can’t just throw punches, or hexes! We’re here for Entrapta, don’t forget—”

Exactly then, the whole house shakes.

Adora grabs Bow from one arm and Glimmer from the hoody of her cloak, right in time for the space where her head was to be occupied by the darting purple trail of whatever magical implementation Entrapta built on Emily to make it rumble and fly at that speed.

She splatters inside an empty cupboard, yelling upside down as a flood of old canned goods falls in a racket.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine!” she says, and lets herself slide on the floor somewhat delicately, before sitting up, long hair just a little bit burnt at the ends. “Emily and I went exploring—you wouldn’t believe what I found! This is the proof I was searching for!”

“Which proof,” Bow asks, and she takes the question as a good reason to jump on top of him and shake him from the shoulders.

“The proof! It isn’t ghosts that haunted this place! It was just as i thought... It's werewolves!”

The declaration is greeted with looks so skeptical Adora is sure of them even under the scant light of her own lumos.

Entrapta turns to look at Emily, but the broom is still stuck inside the cupboard, purple magic spurting off the bristles.

“Were-wolves. As in, humans who turn into wolves…?”

Glimmer growls and sits up too, rearranging the cloak around her neck.

“We know what werewolves are, Entrapta. But why on earth should a werewolf—”

“Well, I don’t know! But that’s the fascinating part—I want to know why!”

“Let’s say a werewolf really was here,” Bow starts, sitting cross-legged and analytical on the floor, finger raised. “It must have been at least a couple decades ago, now. I really doubt we could ever find enough traces to understand what was really going on—”

“What about this?” Catra is standing near the doorjamb that opens into pure, thick darkness.

Entrapta leaps over Adora’s head so suddenly she has to touch her hair to be sure she hasn’t lost her beloved hair poof.

“Yes, exactly!” Entrapta is yelling, wand poking at the collection of deep gashes that cut the doorjamb right below Catra’s own smaller claws. “The room on the first floor is full of claw marks—but something doesn’t add up! Look what I found—”

Catra wrinkles her nose and frowns; Adora gets closer, but she’s slower than Bow.

“A feather?” 

“Yes!” Entrapta says, eyes glimmering in front of the giant vial she put the silvery feather in; it’s way too big to belong to a pigeon. “Feathers and rat’s bones—wait, I collected those too.”

“We don’t need to see the rat’s bones, Entrapta!” Glimmer yelps.

“What do rats and feathers have to do with werewolves?” Catra asks, head tilted. Adora recognizes the glint of true curiosity inside her voice—only Glimmer doesn’t and she’s already on the warpath.

“Stop instigating her!”

“She’s not a baby, I’m not—”

“Of course you are, you mean—”

Catra’s wand moves in a swift; Adora yells, but Scorpia is faster: as fast as Glimmer’s cloak has caught fire her water spell has already thrown Glimmer three meters away and Adora has to grab at her to prevent the fall.

“Catra, everything is flammable here!” Entrapta says and it’s so out of character for a second that the whole room gets silent apart from the water dripping at Glimmer’s feet and the buzzing sound of Emily levitating on their heads.

“What, we don’t want important data to go to waste!”

Adora feels Glimmer growing heavier in her arms.

“Of course she would say that.”

“I really think we should all calm down—” Scorpia starts, but Entrapta is shrieking, faithful to the shack’s name.

“I can’t calm down! You don’t understand! Werewolves here during the eighties? It was before the wolfbane potion was invented—werewolves were even more misunderstood back then, this place holds a fascinating story, I’m sure of it! And that feather? I can easily hypothesize for it to be a hippogriff feather! And what was a hippogriff doing here?” She’s looking at them all with the biggest, imploring eyes. “This place hides a mystery and I need to know more! I’d like for—come with me, okay? It’s fascinating and—”

Catra is the first to sigh, pointedly and with a shrug.

“Come on, we’re inside already, better take a proper look.”

“Well, it could be an adventure! It already kinda is, right?” Scorpia remarks, bold and sweet. She looks at Catra straight in the eyes. “I’m glad I’m here with you guys.”

Since there was nothing really straight about that look, Catra groans.

“Whatever, we are here I guess. Come on, Rapunzel, take the lead.”

Entrapta shrieks again, loud enough to suffocate any protest from Glimmer. She groans harder and casts a quick drying spell on herself.

“Come on, we’re going too.”

“Inside the creepy tunnel that probably leads to werewolves _and_ hippogriffs?” Bow asks. 

It’s a rhetorical question.

*

The ceiling is low and the air is thick and humid.

“Ouch,” Scorpia’s voice says, some meters below. She’s the only one who’s having serious problems keeping her head from hitting the ceiling. Dirt rolls down every time she does it and every time Adora has to fight the urge to just panick.

“I’d become a ghost to haunt Entrapta if I wasn’t sure that she would find me fascinating instead of scary,” Glimmer mumbles, and they exchange a comforting look. At least they’re on the same page about narrow, unstable tunnels.

Bow is fumbling with a four-point spell, but it’s pretty useless while they’re walking in a long, dark stretch underneath the ground with no direction to choose from.

“I think we’re heading north—ehy?”

Adora bounces on his back and Glimmer yelps when she too trips and falls forward.

“Bow!”

“What, it’s not my fault!” 

Somewhere further, Catra lets out a hiss.

“Scorpia, why did you stop?”

“Uh, ehm,” she starts and how that doesn’t sound good at all. “Wait, let me try—,” she says, and hums. Some more dirt falls from above and Adora coughs, both arms trapped in between Bow and Glimmer. Scorpia moves again, her tail ends up slapping Adora’s face.

“Oh, sorry. That was—uhm. Okay. Let me—” The tail swings and this time is Catra that yelps.

“Scorpia, what the hell are you doing!”

“I’m. I think I’m stuck.”

There’s silence then.

“Oh, that’s not good. What can we do?” Entrapta says, pondering.

“I’ve had enough of this stupid tunnel, we’re going out,” Catra says and Adora knows—way before anybody else, she _knows_.

“Catra, no.”

“Catra, _yes_ ,” she rebuts, and the tip of her wand is already pointing upward, her eyes glinting in the dark with the same spark they had when she was going to do something that would get them both in trouble. “Reducto!” she says, voice unbelievably calm. And the ceiling explodes.

*

The first thing is the wind. The second thing is being slapped by a giant whip.

“Adora!” Glimmer yells and Adora finally opens her eyes, dust falling on her cheeks as she coughs. Another draft of air and her body rolls on the side in a rustle of leaves; she avoids being crushed by—is that a branch?

“It’s the Whomping Willow! We were really heading north!” Bow yells, a bit too incongruously happy about being right, given that he then needs to duck when a rustling branch tries to behead him.

“Oh, well, thank goodness we’ll die knowing the direction!” Catra’s voice is strained as she jumps and then climbs up one moving branch on all fours, claws scratching on the bark. 

Glimmer somehow finds the time to strangle her, even if she has to desist to duck on the left, hair wild.

“Like you can talk! You’re the one who blew everything up!”

“You’re welcome!” Catra rebuts—and the branch is back at her, to hurl her high, Scorpia calling her name.

“How do we stop this stupid tree?” Glimmer yells, and in that exact moment a purple rocket darts in between whipping branches and twirling snow.

“Onto it!”

“She’s something else.”

Adora yells, because Catra just popped out of nowhere, hair messy and a cut on her cheek. Adora shoves her away to casts another diffindo against a murderous bunch of leaves.

Entrapta is flying like a Seeker, evading branches with narrow curves and leaving clouds of glinting purple in Emily's trail.

“Whatever she thinks she's doing, we gotta distract the tree,” Adora says, ready on her knees.

“That’s a weird sentence,” Bow comments, but he’s grabbed Glimmer’s hands and they’re running just like Adora herself—the ground scratches at her knees when she trips over, lucky enough to miss another blow at her face. She’s ready to stand back up again when—

“Stay down!” is what Catra yells—what Catra does, though, is jump on top of her and Adora sees it all: her mismatched eyes wide open, pupils as big as plates, face panicked while the biggest branch comes from behind, shadow high as a tidal wave, and it’s going to crush them both on the ground like tiny mosquitos—

A knot in her throat, Adora keeps her eyes open. Catra’s are above her; so it’s the rest of her body, her arms placed around Adora’s head to shield her, even if she’s always been the tiniest of the two, even if she hates her, even if can’t forgive herself because somehow, somewhere she too must have done something wrong and stomped on her like every single other person in her life and that’s—that’s a very long internal monologue. Way longer than being murdered by a tree should take.

Catra blinks and Adora knows there must be a mirroring frown on her own face.

They both turn to look at the branch. It’s frozen, bark brushing at Catra’s nape like a giant hand, foliage falling down limp and harmless. Then it starts creaking again, slowly, until it rises up and gets back where it should be with all the other branches, leaves dragging on the ground too lightly to leave furrows behind.

“So, apparently there was a knot on the roots that made it stop moving. Don’t thank me!” Entrapta says; she’s smiling, one shoulder rested against the trunk of the willow and one hand petting Emily’s broomstick.

Adora can’t exactly remember how to think thoughts. Catra is still on top of her. She opens her mouth but what comes out isn’t her voice.

“It seems that detention is in order,” it says, ominous, and Catra shivers from her ears to the tip of her tail.

“Professor Hordak, good evening!” Scorpia greets him, jolly despite the fact that she’s losing blood from her nose.

Adora doesn’t even try to move. She just groans and closes her eyes.

*

“Unqualifiable! The Shrieking Shack is one of the most haunted places in Great Britain and a valuable asset to the Hogwarts grounds…”

“But,” Entrapta tries, finger raised.

“But nothing, student,” Hordak shut’s her up, eyes burning mad. “What were you thinking? This childish behavior…”

“It wasn’t childish! It was for the sake of truth!” Entrapta yells, and now even Angella is looking at her with her jaw open. “The Shrieking Shack is a fraud! There’s no ghost there, probably never been!”

Professor Hordak is going to just pulverize her and then use her as an ingredient for his potions.

“How can you say that," he growls, and Entrapta doesn't budge.

“Because I went there and look! Something none of you took the time to do! The damage inflicted upon the furniture is evidently made by a corporeal being and a very clawed one at least! A ghoul, maybe, but I’m more inclined to think it was something even more interesting, in fact, I’m pretty sure it was a werewolf!”

“A werewolf,” Hordak repeats, dumbstruck.

“Exactly!” Entrapta tells him, right at his face. “Look, I triangulated old reports of movements from the Shrieking Shacks with the Hogmsmeade’s Daily, personal journals, reported calls to aurors and…” And they’re lost, the both of them: Angella’s jaw is open while she watches her deputy headmaster getting lectured about werewolves by a third-year student whom he should be punishing. 

“Anyway,” she says, snapping out of it, palms pressed onto one another as she tries to focus on the rest of them. “As professor Hordak was saying, we’re both terribly disappointed in you. You don’t only damaged the school’s property ground, but you seriously endangered yourselves. The Whomping Willow is a very violent sentient creature and it could have easily severely injured you, if not killed you. One hundred points—”

“But _mom_ —”

“One hundred points, Glimmer,” she retorts, just as loud. “For each one of you will be subtracted from your respective Houses.”

“Well, at least the points will still be pretty balanced between Slytherin and Gryffyndor,” Scorpia says, smiling at everybody.

“You don’t make any sense. You should be in Hufflepuff, why aren’t you in Hufflepuff,” Catra says, pretty legitimately incredulous.

“The Hat wanted to put me there, but it didn’t feel right towards my family, you know? And, anyway, I got to stay with you, Wildcat, so it’s a win-win!”

The sound of Catra face-palming is enough to distract Hordak from Entrapta’s excited blubbering. 

“Most important, you two,” he says, and he’s definitely pointing at Adora too. “You don’t have signed permissions to visit Hogsmeade in the first place. We’ll have to write to your parents—”

“Don’t have any,” Catra rebuts. “Probably dead.”

Adora blinks fast, blood rushing to her ears.

“Shadow Weaver is going to kill us. Can’t we just get punished here?”

Angella sighs and she looks almost as unhappy as Adora feels.

“All of you acted recklessly and deduction of points is in order, but you didn’t technically break any school rules. Adora and Catra, however, perfectly knew weren’t allowed to go to Hogsmeade without permission. You will have to serve detention with professor Hordak as he sees fit and written word will be sent to your guardian. These are the rules,” she adds, because Glimmer is already stepping up to protest and Adora doesn’t really know what face is she doing apart from feeling a well-known knot growing like a bubble right under her diaphragm. She swallows and searches for Catra’s face, but she’s behind Scorpia, and the only sign of her worry is the tail, pressed long and rigid at her heels. 

“Now, you’re all dismissed. Try to get to your respective dormitories _without_ setting fire to the staircases,” Angella says, looking at Glimmer straight in the eyes until Bow catches her from the shoulders to drag her out of her mother’s office.

And then they’re out, even if Entrapta manages to keep talking with Hordak for the rest of the corridor until they both disappear around the corner.

“I’ll let you know the day and place of your detention!” he remembers to yell, before vanishing in the direction of the Ravenclaw tower despite being the head of Slytherin. Someone should seriously interrogate that Sorting Hat about its criteria, honestly.

“That was weird,” Bow says, squinting. “Should we try to save Entrapta?”

“From what, transforming the scariest professor into a likable nerd?” says Glimmer. “We should get her a medal.”

They laugh, shoulders pressed onto one another until it’s weird, because Scorpia and Catra are still there, walking behind them.

Adora clears her throat, undecided and still...

“Catra, can I—”

“What,” she hisses, ears lowered and tail puffed. 

“Go, guys, I’ll catch up with you,” Adora says, to Glimmer and Bow. Their smiles fall off fast; Glimmer raises one eyebrow to measure up Catra and Scorpia like she has to intimidate them despite being shorter than both of them—and being shorter than Catra could be considered an actual accomplishment.

“Please,” Adora insists.

“If you aren’t back in ten, I’m going to hunt them down,” Glimmer says, and she’s still gesturing ‘I’m watching you’ even over Bow’s shoulder as he pushes her away down the stairs.

Adora sighs hard. 

“Scorpia, could you…?” she asks, because there she is, standing still beside Catra like a towering, lovely watchdog. 

“Yes?” she asks, smiling.

Adora smiles too.

“Leave us alone for a second?”

Scorpia blinks.

“Oh. Oh, sure. Yeah, getting better at reading the room, am I? Awesome. Sure. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll see you in the common room, Catra. Don’t be late. Bye. Yes, I’ll go now.”

Adora frowns, but is Catra the one who face-palms.

“Scorpia, we can see your tail.”

“Oh,” she says, swinging it behind the corner. “Oh, right. Sorry about that. Have a nice chat!” And then she’s gone for real, footsteps heavy on the stone floor.

“She’s definitely something else. Did you bond over the fact that you both have… tails?”

Catra's eyebrows fall flat.

“What do you want, Adora.”

Straight to the point, right. She exhales, blows away some stranded hair that’s escaped from her ponytail while they were trying to survive the Whomping Willow—and, yeah, about that...

“I just…” 

“Oh, for Morgaine’s sake, I knew you would have been all weird because of that thing!”

“Weird, me? Not at all!”

“Yeah. Sure. Fine.”

She's gaping and Catra is definitely avoiding meeting her eyes. Adora sighs.

“I just. I… thank you, for not letting the Whomping Willow crush my head, that’s all. Sounded fair in my head.”

“Yeah, sure. Who do you think I am, some evil crazy-ass person? Of course I won’t let a tree crush your head. That would have been such a dumb death even for you.”

It’s really—gosh, it’s so difficult talking with Catra. Maybe because it used to be so simple instead. 

“I know you wouldn’t.”

“So why do you act like you’re not really sure?” 

“Because—” he finds herself at a loss for words. She frowns. “I guess I’m not sure what we are anymore.”

Finally, Catra looks at her, tilted eyebrows and eyes weighing her.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” Adora says. “You—we did a lot of mean things to each other during the last couple of years but I don’t want you to be killed by a tree either. I don’t want to see you hurt at all and I know that you still feel the same and…”

“You don’t get to choose how I feel, really.”

So. Difficult.

“I just—I don’t want to see you hurt now and I didn’t want to see you hurt back then. That—wasn’t fair at all, and you’ve got a right at being angered. I am too.”

“Of course you are! Righteous Adora, that angers on behalf of—”

Oh for Merlin's beard!

“Why! Why can’t you be—I am trying, Catra! Can’t you tell? We’re away from her, now, she can’t hurt you here!”

Until summer, it’s what’s floating in the hair, heavy like thunderous clouds, like suffocating clumps of fur.

Catra looks thunderstruck, tail rigid, eyes wide. She frowns.

“Yeah. I—it doesn’t feel like that sometimes. I—”

She’s lurking in the shadows, always; she’s a voice inside Adora’s head every step she takes, every mark every success and every failure, she’s…

“Yeah,” she says. “I understand.”

Glimmer doesn’t—good, brave, loyal Glimmer doesn’t understand why Adora still can’t forget Catra even after the meanest of her mean remarks. Catra is with her way deeper than Shadow Weaver and Adora knows that they’re the same.

Catra sighs.

“Scorpia is waiting. I—she’s a goofball but…”

“Yeah. She’s pretty cool.”

“Your friends aren’t that bad either. Sparkle sure can throw a punch,” she adds, scratching at her cheek.

Awkward. And so, so right—Adora takes another step: not enough to be close, but it’s a start, right?

“I think I’ll stay here for Christmas. Glimmer and Bow too, so… I’ll catch you around?”

Catra shrugs, and she's already stepped away, feet always light even on the echoey stone floor of the Castle.

“We’ll see each other at detention way before Christmas, you dork.”

Ah, fair enough. And when she blows her a raspberry right before sprinting around the corner, Adora feels like detention too doesn’t really sound that ominous.


End file.
